


Cedar and Beeswax

by 3RatMoon



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Misunderstandings, even then arrell is still kind of a jerk, when things were good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-12 03:03:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20137099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3RatMoon/pseuds/3RatMoon
Summary: After years of correspondence and occasional meetings, Alyosha finally sent Arrell a letter confessing his feelings. It took ten weeks for him to receive a response.





	Cedar and Beeswax

**Author's Note:**

> Some months ago I wrote an alyarr first kiss ficlet in response to a curiouscat request, and I liked it so much that I filled it out a bit more.
> 
> Thanks again to harpydora for beta reading, and to everyone who replies to the various wips I post on my private twitter. Your validation helps me keep going when delayed gratification is hard lol

Alyosha waited for ten weeks to hear back from Arrell, the year that he confessed his feelings.

It was not something Alyosha took lightly. The two of them had known each other for the better part of a decade, crossing paths occasionally and corresponding with a fair consistency otherwise. At the time that he confessed, Alyosha received letters from the wizard almost weekly. The turn around between the two of them was roughly two weeks, so their conversation staggered because of that, dates frequently appearing in parentheticals to communicate which letter a particular response was being written to. Arrell had rarely felt so near to Alyosha as during then, which contributed in its own way to the pressure he felt, the need to make himself explicitly clear or else risk doing something more drastic on impulse, or perhaps simply perishing on the spot.

So, after several drafts, Alyosha sent his letter. He received one from Arrell a couple days later, but it was clearly a reply from a previous letter. Alyosha didn't reply right away, hoping to hear from Arrell first.

Nothing. Ten weeks of total silence.

Alyosha was able to justify the quiet at first. Their correspondence ebbed and flowed, so the timing didn’t necessarily have to have meaning. Arrell maybe got busy, or moved, or else the roads were damaged somewhere and delayed travel. However, as furiously as the Exarch tried to believe, time went on to no news of anything.

Alyosha stopped sleeping. He kept going over his letter obsessively, making corrections and changing the order of words he wasn’t sure he even remembered correctly. After two nights of it, he tried instead to write his thoughts out of him, but it seemed to have barely an effect on anything except his supplies of paper. His streams of consciousness turned into pages of drafts, fragmented further and further by marked out portions until they became fields of discarded options.

<strike> _ “My dearest Tutor,” _ </strike>

<strike> _ “Dear Tutor,” _ </strike>

<strike> _ “My dear Arrell,” _ </strike>

<strike> _ “My fondest friend, Arrell,” _ </strike>

<strike> _ “Arrell,” _ </strike>

The sheets of paper, thoroughly destroyed by Alyosha’s scratchings, were eventually shoved into a corner of his desk to languish along with the Exarch’s peace of mind. He pondered dumping them into his brazier to burn, but never did. He did continue to sleep poorly, though, his mind even going so far as to taunt him with nightmares of Arrell’s rejection. Alyosha was already one of poor constitution, and his exhaustion showed plainly on his face. The couriers looked at him sadly whenever he went to double-check for arrivals at their outpost.

But then, on the fourth day of the tenth week, a letter arrived with the unmistakable signature of Tutor Arrell.

_ Alyosha, _

_ I received your letter. _

_ My work will be taking me past Rosemerrow in the next week. If it suits you, I would be pleased to meet you there. _

_ T.A. _

Alyosha felt relieved, confused, and furious all at once.

Of course, he went to Rosemerrow.

Their usual place was an inn and tavern in the Veridian Village called The Sand Pike. It had changed little since Alyosha last visited, except for perhaps a bit more wear on its sign, which showed the weasel-like creature that was the inn’s namesake, curled around a full tankard. However, when Alyosha looked down the street and over the hills of the city, he could see the stone-and-branch skeletons of what he was told was the future Wistful Peaks district.

Alyosha didn’t have to wait for Arrell to arrive this time, at least. He found the wizard in one of his favorite corner booths, scowling at a book like he wanted to take a pen to it himself. He looked up when Alyosha approached, though, and the creases in his forehead almost disappeared.

“Alyosha,” he said.

“Tutor,” Alyosha replied.

A long silence stretched between them.

Arrell frowned. “Go on, sit down. I don’t want you to exhaust yourself.”

“Oh. Oh, yes, of course.” Alyosha rushed to sit down even before he remembered to take off his pack, and he ended up having to shrug it off awkwardly so he could put it next to him on the bench. The exchange had left him fumbling, feeling suddenly unsure.

“Er, actually, I haven’t visited the bar, yet,” he said, standing up again. “Did you want anything while I’m up?”

Arrell looked up when Alyosha stood, but his attention quickly strayed to the book again. “I will take another round. The tender knows my preferences.”

Alyosha lingered by the bar for a while. He caught up with the owner a bit as an excuse, but he spent most of his time just sitting and trying not to feel sick. He almost considered asking one of the patrons outside if they would share their pipe, even though he knew his lungs would be quite intolerant of the smoke. Eventually, he felt more guilty than nauseous, and got up to go back to Arrell.

“I’m back,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound strained.

Arrell looked up from his book again, raising a brow at Alyosha’s announcement, but there was a smile there— faint, but undeniable. Alyosha swallowed, his heart giving a worrying twitch.

It was slow going at first. Alyosha prattled a bit about his travels, but he felt like he was only doing so to fill the silence, and Arrell seemed to only be paying half attention. Alyosha fell into quietly nursing his pint. But then, Arrell sighed and closed his book with a snap, grumbling about how “anyone with a press can make books now” and how the author’s theory on spaces within spaces was “fundamentally flawed”. Alyosha asked what he meant, and Arrell dove into a deep diatribe right away, picking through definitions of Space, and whether Spaces truly contain Nothing or can still contain Something. 

Alyosha let him talk; he enjoyed listening to him, for the knowledge and insight Arrell had, but also for the way his voice changed when he spoke, the look he got in his eyes. Arrell in his element was breathtaking in a way that Alyosha rarely tired of. It was enough for him to forget about the unspoken things needling at him, if only for a moment.

Time went more quickly after that. Alyosha got up once or twice to get more drinks for them both, but otherwise they were entirely engrossed in conversation. Arrell’s mind was like quality ink in a pen— sharp and decisive, but when met with water, suddenly more fluid, topics bleeding into each other and possibilities widening where the two things meet and mingle.

Alyosha liked to be the water to Arrell’s ink.

After a while, with several empty glasses cluttering their table and the room quieter after most of the patrons had either retired or moved on, Arrell looked up at Alyosha with a rare small smile and said, “It is late. I have a room upstairs if you are amenable.”

Alyosha felt the stirrings of anxiety and hope again at that statement, despite the fact that they had shared rooms and beds many times before. “Yes,” Alyosha said quickly, then amended with, “I’d prefer stairs to a longer trip searching for another bed.”

Arrell nodded and stood, offering his hand. Alyosha took it.

The room was small and cramped, and it smelled of must, cedar, and beeswax, just as Alyosha remembered. The familiar memories seemed to just urge on the feelings of fear and expectation and hope, until Alyosha felt like he was swimming in it. He saw himself put down his things in the corner, as if from a great distance. He watched Arrell light a couple candles that were sitting on the small desk, then pull out the chair.

“Please, sit,” Arrell said, and Alyosha sat.

What followed was more or less a continuation of their previous discussion. Alyosha was able to follow for a little while, but as time went on, Arrell’s words became more difficult to make out through the noise of Alyosha’s confusion and anticipation. Was the conversation leading to anywhere? Was Arrell waiting for some signal from Alyosha? Had Alyosha missed some subtlety in Arrell’s letter and he was actually responding to a different letter of Alyosha’s, his confession lost somewhere on the road? The questions kept building as Arrell kept talking. It could have been an hour, or it could have just been ten minutes. Alyosha couldn’t keep the time, couldn’t focus, couldn’t breathe.

“Theirs is honestly an archaic definition of Nothing, but—”

Arrell stopped speaking when Alyosha's hand slammed down on the desk. They were several hours into their first visit in nearly a year, and some months since Alyosha had confessed, and Alyosha was both a bit tipsy and more than a bit furious.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" he asked, unable to raise his voice even as it quivered. "_ Anything? _ I know the topic of that letter may be difficult, but I would accept an 'I-need-more-time' — by His Light, I would accept a _ rejection _ before this, this _ stalemate, _ with you acting like everything is normal, like I haven't spent nights unable to sleep, thinking I've ruined everything just because I couldn't keep my cursed mouth shut!"

Alyosha's words ran out after that, his back slumping as he felt the energy of his brief outburst drain away. Arrell sat there and looked at him for several agonizing moments, some small flickers of expression crossing his face. Alyosha tried to read them, but he found them unfathomable, unable to think much over the pounding of his heart.

Finally, Arrell opened his mouth to speak. "I... see that I have not made myself clear," he said, slowly, his voice far from its usual stern clip. "I will have to rectify that."

Made yourself clear on _ what _, Alyosha wanted to say, but the words caught in his throat when Arrell took his hands in his own.

Carefully, so carefully, Arrell brought Alyosha's palm to his lips. He looked up as he raised the other. His sharp gaze from under his lashes was likely not intentionally seductive, but Alyosha gaped all the same. He could hardly believe it, even as he again felt the touch of Arrell's gentle kiss.

"Alyosha," the wizard said, and there might have been a question in it.

Alyosha reached for Arrell's face. 

You _ fool _ , he wanted to say. You _ utter fool _. 

Instead, all that came out was a choked "Tutor..." as he leaned in and kissed him like he had wanted to for years— on the mouth, with his hands on Arrell, and Arrell’s hands on him, and the promise of many more kisses like them to follow.


End file.
